Book Reviews

“Language is a wild animal” is the metaphor upon which Talk on the Wild Side is based. Author Lane Greene asks his readers to consider a wide variety of examples proving this, starting with constructed, “logical” languages such as Loglan that nobody is quite capable of speaking. The book covers everything from the Great Vowel Shift to Vietnamese grammar to adult language acquisition — and this is just in one chapter....

Industry veteran and Multilingual editorial board member Jost Zetzsche has collected 81 previously-published articles and essays for his latest book, Translation Matters. Their original publication dates range from 2003 to 2017 and they appeared everywhere from Christianity Today to his own Tool Box Journal. There’s even a Twitter exchange with a journalist, put into print format like its own story....

I don’t think there’s any better way to sum up what this book is about than the title. Having worked my way through pretty much every job in the translation industry, I jumped on the opportunity to give it a read, to see if others see the industry like I do....

Overall, Think Outside the Country is a primer for those starting out on their globalization journey and a useful refresher course for those who think they know it all. Crafted by a seasoned copywriter and industry insider, the book is a fun read while providing some serious food for thought....

Several years ago, I intently tried to find someone who could accurately localize a specific Ancient Greek phrase found in the New Testament. The phrase, in traditional English, is “wives, be subject to your husbands.” However, I was trying to find out if a more accurate modern English version would be something like “wives, do not fall back when things get tough, because your husbands need you then.”...

Polyglot and language journalist Gaston Dorren has created an anecdotal crash course on European linguistics with his book Lingo. Covering the idiosyncrasies of 50-plus languages, from the spelling of Scots Gaelic to the counting conventions of Breton, Dorren weaves tales of conquest, social mores and isolating landscapes with remarkable ease....

In The Definitive Guide to Measured Translation Quality, Sonia Monahan and Jason Arnsparger at ForeignExchange Translations have drawn on their combined and extensive experience to shed some light on the topic. The result, at 92 pages: a slender but information-packed and highly readable little volume....

Thanks to social media platforms, self-publishing tools and, of course, traditional publishing, freelance translators have a wealth and wide range of resources to help them navigate the practical aspects of the brave, new world of translation. The Book of Standing Out: Travels through the Inner Life of Freelance Translation by Andrew Morris ably straddles professional reality both online and off. Neither a handbook, a reference nor an academic treatise, Morris’ first book pairs anecdotes with ample humor to address the many challenges translators face....

To me, the most interesting section of Translation and Localisation in Video Games was the chapter on training localization professionals. It offers not only an overview of existing programs at European universities, but also outlines the basic components that a module on game localization should include. The basic goal of Bernal-Merino, as he states at several points in his book, is to help bridge the gap that exists between academia on one side and the gaming and localization industries on the other....

When Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of Species in 1859, he forever changed the view that the natural world was an ordered system that had existed as-is for countless years and would remain immutable until the end of time. “Survival of the fittest” became a basic axiom, not only in biology, but also in other spheres of human endeavor.

The business world in particular has embraced this principle, and its imperatives currently rule the vast majority of commercial ventures, from multinational corporations down to the small shops on Main Street....

Other sections on accessibility and localization, fan translation (“ROM hacking”) and crowdsourcing, as well as the use of machine translation in online games provide valuable insights. To me, however, the most interesting chapter was “Pedagogical issues in training game localizers.” The authors criticize the fact that despite the large demand for game localization and the existence of numerous translator training programs at universities worldwide, this subject has been largely ignored (though they do include an appendix on “Postgraduate courses in game localization in Spain”). Rather than simply decrying this state of affairs, they offer a detailed discussion of what such programs should consist of, including specific course descriptions . . .

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, UrbanDictionary.com has seven different definitions of the word frenemy. None of them are positive. Personally, I first heard of frenemies when the term popped up as a program title in season three of Sex and the City. In this episode, Miranda meets a guy at a wake and asks how he knew the deceased. He says, “Roommates in college. We were friends, but competitive. We were always fighting it out for everything. He even died first, just to beat me to the punch,” to which Miranda responds, “You were the classic frenemies.” In other words, they looked and acted like friends, but really, down at the core, there was still something adversarial going on. Friend + enemy. . .

Technical translation is a wide-ranging field, and most professional translators have had to deal with a technical document at some point in their careers, be it a set of instructions to install a piece of equipment, a long manual for a new procedure or a “simple” PowerPoint presentation scrutinizing some obscure aspect of a company.

While other types of translations aim to inform or convince the readers, technical translation is most often used to direct them through an activity. As such, clearness and simplicity outweigh style considerations or the gradual presentation of a concept. As the author states in his introduction: “If you mess up in your translation what technical writers have carefully worked out for the original document, you won’t make them happy.” . . .

The comic strip, which you can also peruse by going to the author’s blog at mox.ingenierotraductor.com, is interspersed with essays written by translation bloggers Sarah M. Dillon, Alex Eames, Céline Graciet, Judy Jenner, Laurent Laget, Benny Lewis, Corinne McKay, Pablo Muñoz, Rose Newell, Jill Sommer, Ramón Somoza, Steve Vitek and Kevin Lossner. Lossner praises Moreno-Ramos’ take on the life of a freelance translator in his introduction, noting that “I find myself working as a translator among peers whose real world and imagined tribulations are not unlike the comic characters of my college days,” who “succinctly described the absurdity of existence and helped me to laugh at it.” . . .

As the reader, I found myself caught up in the tale, wondering what was going to happen next and how the story was going to end. I took a moment to reflect that this was not a suspense story, but a real life situation of an interpreter doing her job to help people struggling in life and death situations. Starting off the book with such a powerful example, the authors paint a perfect picture of how language plays an integral role in real life situations. It illustrates clearly how important interpreters and translators are. . .

As old-fashioned as it seems by turns, however, overall Gauthier’s book succeeds as an authentic, “tried and true” account that functions as much as a welcome, if at times avuncular, pep talk as a reference. Decades working as a professional translator in both the public and private sectors and, finally, as a freelancer, have given Gauthier a clear understanding of translators and translation. . .

So a fitting addition to my ongoing consideration of all things prescriptivism-related, as well as a contribution to the growing body of work on World Englishes (see Mark Abley’s The Prodigal Tongue, reviewed in the December 2009 issue of MultiLingual, for example), is another recent book attempting to shed new light on English standardization, globalization, electronic transmutation and perceived deterioration: Arthur Rowse’s Amglish in, Like, Ten Easy Lessons: A Celebration of the New World Lingo. While its main goal is to “[describe] how informal American English . . . has begun to dominate the globe,” as the back cover says. . .

I’ll come clean. When I was asked as a child in primary school, “What would you do if time and money were no obstacle?” the answer I wrote was, “Travel the world and learn as many languages as possible.” Whether you grew up in a multilingual family or were raised in a largely monolingual environment like I was, those of us who have worked in the language industry have an undeniable love of and penchant for languagesBook on hyperpolyglots challenges perceptions of language proficiency

I’ll come clean. When I was asked as a child in primary school, “What would you do if time and money were no obstacle?” the answer I wrote was, “Travel the world and learn as many languages as possible.” Whether you grew up in a multilingual family or were raised in a largely monolingual environment like I was, those of us who have worked in the language industry have an undeniable love of and penchant for languages. . .

In Capti (The Prisoners), Stephani Berard has written a novel that deserves more of an audience than it will conceivably find. There may be a few relevant reasons for this paucity of readership, but the obvious one is the author’s choice to write his tale of intrigue, farce and metaphysics in Latin — the first novel to be originally published in this language in over 250 years. There are a few tempting presumptions ...

Both fans of science fiction and translation buffs may quickly twig to the “fish” reference in the title of David Bellos’ recent book on translation, which has made it to the lists of both The New York Times Notable Books for 2011 and The Economist’s 2011 Books of the Year. The uninitiated may have to read through to Chapter 24 to understand the title. But not to worry — any reader who enjoys language, linguistics, history, politics or philosophy written in accessible language, illustrated ...